Wishy Washy

Man. Can my kids get anymore wishy washy?? I don't remember that being an option when I was growing up. When I say I want one thing, that's what I get. I can't change my mind. Meal time is the worst. Do you want applesauce or yogurt? They will say one thing, and then after I've opened it, they want the other. UGH!!! Taylor is the worst when this happens. And it's also "peer pressure". If the other two chose something else, they will change their mind. UGH!!!

Weekly Notes - July 18 to July 24

7-18 Today was Connor's first day at his summer day camp. :) I had no problems dropping him off. It was Rock Star Center day and the director said they were going to bake brownies today. Yum!!! The twins had a horse jumper at their school.

7-19 Connor got to go to Nickel Nickel today with SDC. He was so excited. He also has his scooter at school to play with AND he gets to bring his Nintendo DS (although I just realized that he somehow changed it to French so I need to look at that and change it back to English!). The kids were in the pool when I got home so I joined them for 1/2 hour. Great way to cool off on a hot day!

7-20 Today the girls got to get their pictures taken with a pony. Well Emily did. Taylor didn't. Today Connor went roller skating. AND Connor said he wanted his training wheels off his bike and started riding on two wheels! He hasn't mastered it yet, but it won't be long! He is doing pretty darn good!!!

7-21 Today is water play day at the girls school. But Taylor didn't participate. She didn't want to. Not sure what's up with that chick lately. Connor was going to Clark park today. Apparantly the bus broke down at the park. Oops. They were able to get the kids back to school in cars but yikes! Drove to Santee Lakes for our camping trip!

7-22 Camping at Santee Lakes!!! We went fishing, we went in the pool and we watched a movie on a projector at our campsite.

7-23  We got Connor to ride his bike and he is doing GREAT! He didn't want to at first and would only ride his scooter but we talked him into it - and then he wouldn't stop riding. ;) Gotta love it! We went to the spraygound and went swimming in the pool too.

7-24 Came home from camping. Rode the bikes around the block (all three including Taylor which was great since she didn't ride her bike once while we were camping).

Summer Day Camp

Well, I am totally impressed with all that Connor can and will do at his summer day camp. The director is SO nice too. :) It seems like it is really small. Surbjit said he only saw 15 names yesterday on the sign out sheet. Connor was totally excited about going and getting to do so many things. He gets to bring his scooter. He brought his Nintendo DS to school today. He was SO excited to go on the bus today. His BFF from Kindergarten is also there and he said he played with him all day yesterday. I asked if he made any new friends and his reply was, "Not today. I will tomorrow." He is so funny.

He can bring money to school and use it to buy snacks/lunch at break time. And they have craft stuff that he can purchase for like 25 cents depending on what he wants to do (he was interested in making a lanyard today it seemed). So all in all, they have a lot of stuff for the kids to do and they get to run around a lot which I know he loves.  Before I know it, the summer will be over! I think Connor is having a blast. He was so excited to show his sisters around his rooms when I dropped him off today. :)

Highlights 7-11-11 to 7-17-11

7-11-11: It was Bike day for the girls at school. Connor got hot lunch and water play day at daycare after summer school today. And the kids all said I cooked a very yummy meal for dinner. (Can you tell I haven't been cooking often!). We ate spaghetti and corn and bread with butter. =)

7-12-11: It was water play day for the girls. Although it was hard dropping them off. They were tired and so the crying and I don't want to go to school started. Oh well. They had fun. Connor had a field trip to Wendy's for lunch and then got to play with his water gun at school. :)

7-13-11: Connor has his first loose tooth!!! Connor also got picked up by Monica and spent the afternoon playing with Kaylee and her friend instead of going to daycare.

7-14-11: Connor had a field trip to Tutti Frutti. He enjoyed the yogurt. :) All the kids had a rough morning complaining they were tired. Story of my life. . .

7-15-11: Last day of summer school for Connor. :) He had fun. And is so excited to start his new school on Monday.

7-16-11: Connor had karate today. Then we met the Graether family at Knott's Berry Farm. We were there from Noon until almost 8pm and then went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a LOT of fun. The big boys even got to go ride on a couple of roller coasters while Susanna and I took the kids on some rides. :) It was crowded though. :(

7-17-11: Low key kinda day. Took the girls to Target with me. Then the girls had their last swimming lesson. Then we went home and I went to the grocery store. And Connor kept looking for the ice cream truck. He wants to stop the ice cream truck SO BAD!!!

Summer School Ends . . . Summer Day Camp Begins

Monday is the start of summer day camp (SDC) for Connor. Today is the last day of summer school at St. Pius. Since we were starting the SDC late, the director was nice enough and sent us the policies/rules and the calendar for July this past week to get us prepared for next week. Wow! Color me impressed. I mean . . . I really didn't do a lot of research per se on where to send Connor for the summer. I was concerned what with his "problems" at the beginning of kindergarten, he would have a hard time adjusting when we started something new. Hence, I wanted to send him somewhere where he would know someone. And that is how I found his SDC. A lot of kids from St. Pius go there including his BFF (Sean) and our neighbor's daughter Kaylee. But boy - I am totally impressed with all they do and the cost.

For my weekly fee he gets three - four field trips a WEEK. Granted, one day a week is going to a park but that is FUN. That is someplace new for him to go. They also go to Nickel Nickel, Build A Bear, local pool, movies etc. And I only need to send extra spending money IF I WANT. Yup - it's all included!! How cool is that?? So I know he is totally excited to start. I'll be updating on my weekly notes what he gets to do each day! That's the only way I'm going to remember all the cool things he gets to do. I'm excited for him! Now hopefully he has just as much fun as I think he will have! :)

Swimming

I wanted to update on our learning to swim progress. I guess I didn't mention last year about Connor and his screaming crying not wanting to participate in swim lessons. It was horrible. I was "that" parent. Ugh. He did much better by then end of the two weeks but freaked out if his face got wet.

Fast forward to this year. We decided he needed private swim lessons or the same thing was probably going to happen. So we did. And he did pretty good! Still was afraid to get his face wet but the swim instructor got him to and he was dunking his head up to 10 times a class! Yeah!

We decided to put a small pool in our backyard. An intex pool. It's worked out GREAT. Connor has no problem dunking his head! Has no problem getting dunked (yes Daddy does that of course.). And the girls are making progress too. If they slip under the water there is no screaming anymore! They just wipe their face off and move on. The girls still don't want to do it on purpose where as Connor will time after time but that's ok. :) It's all about progress.

Now Emily is BEGGING to be in the turtles & tadpoles class but it's for 4 year olds. Hmm. So we are thinking of doing private lessons for Connor and Emily together. Hmm. Decisions decisions.

July 4th Weekend

We had a great 4th of July weekend. It started Friday with Surbjit and the kids picking me up at work and we drove to Grandma's house. That saved us time from me having to go back home and then basically passing my work again. Also probably saved time on traffic as I'm sure traffic just got worse the longer the day progressed.

So we stopped just north of the Grapevine for lunch for Surbjit and ice cream for the rest of us (it was HOT) and then trudged on our merry way. Kids didn't really nap. The girls had fallen asleep right before we stopped but didn't sleep again the rest of the trip. We finally made it to Grandma's a little after 7pm. So not too bad. About 5 hours to get there.

Saturday we woke up and filled up the inflatable pool Grandma had bought and went swimming a little bit. We basically just relaxed and Uncle Andy and Aunt Sherry came over to visit. They are moving to Florida next month so not sure when the next time we'll get to see them will be. It was nice visiting with them for a little bit.

That night we went to the Woodward Reservoir for a fireworks show. It was actully pretty cool. I never even knew there was a body of water there. We will have to check it out another time since apparantly they have camping and picnic areas etc. As long as it's not 100 degrees outside! (Yes it was 100 every single day we were there).

Sunday we got up and headed to Wal-Mart to do a litle shopping. Went out to lunch and then headed to Uncle Phil's house to visit with him and Evan. We ended up going to the trout farm and went fishing. Man - the kids did AWESOME! Connor caught like 5 fish. One of them was 17.5" long! It was huge (and delicious!). Emily caught a couple and even Taylor - after saying no she didn't want to fish - decided to try fishing and caught a fish. We went back to Uncle Phil's and he cooked the fish up (and some hamburger and hot dogs) and we had a feast.

Monday was the 4th of July. The kids went back into the swimming pool and had a blast. Uncle Phil and Evan came over and we all had a water balloon and water hose fight. It was lots of fun. =) We caught so much fish yesterday we BBQd more (along with hamburgers and hot dogs). It was a fun day! And we even got Evan to wear shorts. LOL! (He hates wearing short. ;) ) Phil and Evan needed to go home before it got dark so we set off some fireworks before dinner. Not quite the same but you could still see the pretty colors. :) We also had some left so we waited for dark and we got to see some of them at night too. Very pretty!

Tuesday, we left around 8 am to drive home. The weekend went way too fast! Made it home in 5 hours and stopped at California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. It was Yummy!!! After lunch we all got into the pool at home and played for almost three hours!!! Lots of fun. It was a great weekend!!

Two Week Vacation

Well, I really don't feel like working so I think I'll update on my fun time I had my two weeks off.

So Connor was graduating from Kindergarten on June 7th. Summer school didn't start until June 20th so I was looking at having to take the 7th (since obviously I wanted to be there) through the 19th off. Well shoot. Since I was going to be off for four days that week anyway, I decided to just make it a full week and help out with field day at his school on Monday.

Monday

Was field day at Connor's school. That is where they basically get to play games and have fun. I decided to help out all day and help Connor's teacher with any last minute last day stuff she needed to get done. Good thing too as no one else from Connor's class came to help. :( There were plenty of parents from the other Kindergarten class but I was the only one from mine. It was actually a fun day. We got to put together the poster for the kids graduation and put together some balloons and stuff for the field day activities that afternoon.

Tuesday

It was graduation day!! We kept the twins out of school so they could go and Bigi was able to make it as well. They did a little singing, a little hand movements, and then they all got to go up to Father and he handed them their "diploma". It was very cute. =) After the graduation, Connor got his choice of where to eat for lunch. His choice - Buffalo Wild Wings. It was very yummy! Then we went to Knott's Berry Farm! The kids had a blast and we stayed quite awhile.

Wednesday

Hmm. I let the kids sleep in. Connor and I dropped the girls off at school and then Connor and I ran an errand. After our errand (we got mommy's car washed! and her ring checked) we headed over to Chuck E Cheese!! Woo Hoo! It was empty. LOL! Connor had a blast. We had so many tokens left over from the girls bday party last year, we didn't even make a dent! I bought us lunch (boy are they expensive!) and that was all I had to pay for. Then we went home and I cleaned while Connor played and watched tv.

Thursday

I love my job so much that I decided to take Connor in to work! (ok. not so much but at least this way I didn't have a TON of e-mails to return when I got back in the office. Let's just say after three days I had 83 e-mails!). But another bonus is Connor loves taking the train. =) So we took the Metrolink into work. He lasted longer than I thought he would but after 4 hours he was ready to go home. So we did. It was enough for me to get some stuff done so that was good!

Friday

I let the kids sleep again. Took the girls to school and then went home and cleaned the house. Oh so fun!!

Saturday

Connor had his karate class. Then we got to swim in our new pool!! (The story on how we got it and the pain in the butt it was from Toys R Us is going to be another blog post!!!) This kids love it. Now that's it's getting consistently warmer we should hopefully get to use it more. =)

Sunday

Nothing too exciting today. Just chillin' out.

Monday

We all went to Disneyland!!! We got there right when the park opened! It was perfect. Didn't have long to wait on the first 3 or 4 rides. Taylor wouldn't ride anything. :( And two of the things she rode (Alice in Wonderland & Pinocchio) she made me cover her eyes the entire time. :( She didn't even want to ride It's a Small World! WHAT?!?! This child I swear! But we all had fun. Connor and Daddy got to ride on some rides while I waited in line with the girls to see the Princesses and the Fairies. :) Taylor wouldn't get her picture taken with the princesses but did with Tinkerbell. You can tell who her favorite is. ;) We ended up staying from 8am until close to 6pm. I think that's great for all three of the kids considering no naps where taken. The one GREAT think about Disneyland - Connor broke his brand new toy that we bought him right before we left the park (well Emily broke it for him). We went back to where we bought it with the receipt and they gave us a new one!! Woo Hoo!! I had read that Disney would do that (even with balloons if they get popped) so I guess it's true!! Way to Go Disney!

Tuesday

Taylor had another ear appt with the ENT so I dropped Emily off for an hour at school and took Taylor and Connor to the appt. Poor Taylor did not like getting her ears check. When she was done I asked her what she wanted. She said, "I want my Emily." Ah! Afterward, we went and picked up Emily and the four of us went home. The kids played in the pool and we just hung out at the house.

Wednesday

Again, I took Connor into work. =) He loved the train but didn't last as long this time and wanted to go on the train again. I did get some stuff done but wasn't as productive as the last time. LOL! Then we picked up the girls after nap time and went home and went swimming in the pool again. =)

Thursday

It was all about running errands today. =)

Friday

We all went out to breakfast and then headed over to Knott's Berry Farm for the day. It was quite crowded because of all the end of year school field trips. But we got to ride on some rides and stayed from about 11 - 4. We figured we needed to go home and let the kids rest because we were going to Pirate's Dinner Adventure with the whole family (minus the Aunt's who didn't go). It was a blast! Both Connor and Mona got to go up on the pirate boat with a bunch of other kids. It was too cute! And even Uncle Harjinder and Uncle TJ got roped into carrying pirate treasure to the top of the ship. =) It was a cute show and all the kids liked it.

Saturday

We took the kids to the Four Wheels Parts off road show in Ontario. It was pretty cool to see the big trucks but there really wasn't much to look at. Went home and relaxed some more.

Sunday

It was Father's Day! The kids got to give their Dad their presents they made at school which he loved.  And Surbjit got to relax (well as much as you can with three kids! LOL!)

So that was my two weeks in a nut shell. =D I get to look forward to another two weeks at the end of August. But this time - I have Connor one week and the girls the next. Will be FUN!